The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

DIVISION XII.
0 part of the Fens being within the hundred of
/{vt~ flg __ A d Skirbeck, a particular and distinct history of them
would be foreign to the plan of this work; however, they are so intimately connected with the
district under consideration, that some account of
_ " them appears necessary, and it is hoped that the
= following brief sketch will not be considered misplaced by being here introduced.
The history of the ancient state of this district, and of the probable changes it
has undergone, will be attempted in another place. The following account
relates merely to the progress of drainage and inclosure.
Probably the earliest notice of the great district of the Fens upon record is
found in the charter granted by Wolphere, King of Mercia, to the Abbey of
Peterborough, in the year 664.
" The entire district comprises about the sixth part of the extensive valley drained by the
rivers flowing into the Wash,' and bordering the sea-coast from Barton on the Humber to Lynn
in Norfolk. In the north of Lincolnshire, they do not extend more than four or five miles
inland; but in the south of that county, they are twenty miles wide, and from Lynn to
Peterborough, they are thirty miles across. The whole length of the tract is about 130 miles,
and with the exception of the Lincolnshire Wolds to the north, and a few hills in the south
and south-west, the whole fen has nearly one level, often beneath that of the sea, especially
about its middle and southern parts. Its original condition, we may from these elementary
facts readily conceive. The water falling over so extensive an area, from elevations too
small to impel it onwards, would naturally be arrested in a marsh, whose lowest point was
about midway between the sea and its inland borders. The result was a large fresh-water
lake; which, for many ages, was probably the sole character of the whole fen." 2
1 This includes the entire counties of Cambridge, colnshire, and a small part of Leicestershire, comHuntingdon, Bedford, Northampton, and Rutland, prising altogether about 5000 square miles.-WALnearly one-half of Norfolk, one-third of Suffolk, KER'S Wisbech and the Fens, p. 3.
one-half of Buckinghamshire, three-fourths of Lin- 2 Ibid. p. 4.